Layin’ Down The J. Law

Dream Team Jennifer Lawrence and Richard Linklater May Be Joining Forces

Jennifer Lawrence has all sorts of movies on her slate. In addition to her already filmed final Hunger Games installment and David O. Russell’sJoy (out this winter), she’s currently filming the latest X-Men sequel (reprising her role as Mystique for the last time); she’ll be starring opposite Chris Pratt in the sci-fi project Passengers (the press tour for that film is likely to subdue the Internet); and she still has an adaptation of Jeannette Walls’sThe Glass Castle in development. And she also is committed to starring in The Rosie Project, which is not a Rosie O’Donnell biopic, but rather a film, written by Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter (500 Days of Summer, The Fault In Our Stars), about a “socially awkward genetics professor” who devises an “elaborate questionnaire” in hopes of finding his ideal partner. Of course, he ends up falling, instead, for a woman who “is the opposite of every item on his checklist,” named Rosie.

Initially, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were on board to direct, but Deadline is reporting that, in light of the duo leaving the project (to direct the Han Solo Star Wars spin-off film), Richard Linklater is now the front-runner to take on the job. This will not be Linklater’s first post-Boyhood project, though, as Everybody Wants Some—which he has called a “spiritual sequel” to his Dazed and Confused—is reportedly now in the test-screenings phase, due for a 2016 release.

Now, who to play that “socially awkward genetics professor”? Mark Ruffalo comes to mind immediately, for some reason. Jessica Chastain would be an unexpected and amazing choice. Though, since this is a J.Law film, it’s probably going to just be Bradley Cooper, isn’t it?